Читать книгу Southern Arabia - J. Theodore Bent - Страница 14

During the time that we spent at Ali we had numerous visitors. The first day came five camels with two riders apiece, and a train of donkeys, bringing rich pearl merchants from the capital; these sat in a circle and complacently drank our coffee and ate our mixed biscuits, without in any way troubling us, having apparently come for no other object than to get this slender refreshment.

Next day came Sheikh Mohammed, a young man of seventeen, a nephew of Sheikh Esau, who was about to wed his uncle's daughter, and was talked of as the heir-apparent to the throne; he was all gorgeous in a white embroidered robe, red turban, and head rings bound in royal gold. He played with our pistols with covetous eyes, ate some English cake, having first questioned the bazaar-master as to the orthodoxy of its ingredients, and then he promised us a visit next day.

He came on the morrow, on a beautifully caparisoned horse, with red trappings and gold tassels. He brought with him many followers and announced his intention of passing the day with us, rather to our distress; but we were appeased by the present of a fat lamb with one of those large bushy tails which remind one forcibly of a lady's bustle, and suggests that the ingenious milliner who invented these atrocities must have taken for her pattern an Eastern sheep. This day 'Prince' Mohammed handled the revolver more covetously than ever, and got so far as exchanging his scarlet embroidered case, with red silk belt and silver buckle, for my leathern one.

Sheikh Mohammed was very anxious to see how I could shoot with my revolver, so a brown pot containing about half a pint of water was put on a lump of rock as a mark. I was terrified; for I knew if I missed, as I surely expected, I should bring great discredit on myself and my nation, and there was such a crowd! My husband said I must try, and I am sure no one was more astonished than I was that I shattered the pot. If I had not it would have been said that I only carried the revolver for show.

That afternoon a great cavalcade of gazelle huntsmen called upon us. The four chief men of these had each a hooded falcon on his arm, and a tawny Persian greyhound, with long silky tail, at his side. They wore their sickle-like daggers in their waistbands; their bodies were enveloped in long cloaks, and their heads in white cloths bound round with the camel-hair straps; they were accompanied by another young scion of the El Khalifa family, who bestrode a white Arab steed with the gayest possible trappings. Thus was this young prince attired: on his head a cashmere kerchief with gold akkal; he was almost smothered in an orange cloth gown trimmed with gold and lined with green, the sleeves of which were very long, cut open at the ends and trimmed; over this robe was cast a black cloth cloak trimmed with gold on the shoulders, and a richly inlaid sword dangled at his side, almost as big as himself, for he was but an undersized boy of fifteen. The sportsmen made a very nice group for our photography, as did almost everything around us on Bahrein.

Any excavator would have lost patience with the men of Bahrein with whom we had to deal; tickets had to be issued to prevent more men working than were wanted, and claiming pay at the end of the day; ubiquity was essential, for they loved to get out of sight and do nothing; with unceasing regularity the pipe went round and they paused for a 'drink' at the bubble-bubble, as the Arabs express it; morning, noon-tide, and evening prayers were, I am sure, unnecessarily long. Accidents would happen, which alarmed us at first, until we learnt how ready they were to cry wolf: one man was knocked over by a stone; we thought by his contortions some limb must be broken, and we applied vaseline, our only available remedy, to the bruise; his fellow-workmen then seized him by the shoulders, he keeping his arms crossed the while, shook him well 'to put the bones right again,' as they expressed it, and he continued his work as before.

The bazaar-master and the policeman would come and frantically seize a tool, and work for a few seconds with herculean vigour by way of example, which was never followed. 'Yallah!' 'hurry on' (i.e. Oh God); 'Marhabbah!' 'very good,' the men would cry, and they would sing and scream with a vigour that nearly drove us wild. But for the occasional application of a stick by the bazaar-master and great firmness, we should have got nothing out of them but noise.

One day we had a mutiny because my husband dismissed two men who came very late; the rest refused to work, and came dancing round us, shouting and brandishing spades. One had actually got hold of a naked sword, which weapon I did not at all like, and I was thankful 'Prince' Mohammed had not yet got the revolver. For some time they continued this wild weird dance, consigning us freely to the lower regions as they danced, and then they all went away, so that the bazaar-master had to be sent in search of other and more amenable men. Evidently Sheikh Esau, when he entrusted us to the charge of the bazaar-master and sent policemen with us, was afraid of something untoward happening. Next day we heard that his majesty was coming in person with his tents to encamp in our vicinity, and I fancy we were in more danger from those men than we realised at the moment, fanned as they are into hatred of the infidel by the fanatical Wahabi; thirty years ago, I was told, no infidel could have ventured into the centre of Bahrein with safety.

Another important visitor came on Saturday in the shape of Sheikh Khallet, a cousin of the ruling chief, with a retinue of ten men, from Rufa'a, an inland village. We sat for awhile on our heels in rows, conversing and smiling, and finally accepted an invitation from Sheikh Khallet to visit him at his village, and make a little tour over the island. Accordingly, on Sunday morning we started, accompanied by the bazaar-master, for Rufa'a, and we were not a little relieved to get away before Sheikh Esau was upon us, and escape the formalities which his royal presence in our midst would have necessitated.

We had an exceedingly hot ride of it, and the wind was so high that our position on our donkeys was rendered even more precarious than usual. The desert sand whirled around us: we shut our eyes, tied down our hats, and tried to be patient; for miles our road led through the tumuli of those mysterious dead, who once in their thousands must have peopled Bahrein; their old wells are still to be seen in the desert, and evidences of a cultivation which has long ago disappeared. As we approached the edge of this vast necropolis the mounds grew less and less, until mere heaps of stones marked the spot where a dead man lay, and then we saw before us the two villages of Rufa'a. Of these, one is known as Rufa'a Shergeh, or South-western Rufa'a; the other, which belongs to the young Prince Mohammed, is called Rufa'a Jebeli. The Rufa'a are much older than Moharek, or Manamah; they are fortified with castellated walls of mud brick. Many of the El Khalifa family reside here in comfortable houses. South-western Rufa'a is quite a big place, and as our arrival became known all the village turned out to see us. The advent of an English lady among them was something too excessively novel: even close-veiled women forgot their prudery, and peered out from their blue coverings, screaming with laughter, and pointing as they screamed to the somewhat appalled object of their mirth. 'Hade bibi!' ('there goes the lady'), shouted they again and again. No victorious potentate ever had a more triumphant entry into his capital than the English 'bibi' had on entering South-western Rufa'a.

Sheikh Khallet was ready to receive us in his kahwa or reception-room, furnished solely by strips of matting and a camel-hair rug with coarse embroidery on it; two pillows were produced for us, and Arabs squatted on the matting all round the wall, for it was Sheikh Khallet's morning reception, or majilis, just then, and we were the lions of the occasion. Our host, we soon learnt, rather to our dismay, was a most rigid ascetic—a Wahabi to the backbone. He allows of no internal decorations in his house; no smoking is allowed, no wine, only perpetual coffee and perpetual prayers; our prospects were not of the most brilliant. Some of the Wahabi think even coffee wrong. After a while all the company left, and Sheikh Khallet intimated to us that the room was now our own. Two more large pillows were brought, and rugs were laid down; as for the rest we were dependent on our own very limited resources. We had brought our own sheets with us.

The Interior of Sheikh Saba's House at Rufa'a, Bahrein

Sheikh Saba, who had married Sheikh Khallet's sister, was a great contrast to our host; he had been in Bombay and had imbibed in his travels a degree of worldliness which ill became a Wahabi. He had filled his house, to which he took us, with all sorts of baubles—gilt looking-glasses hanging on the walls; coloured glass balls in rows and rows up to the ceiling, each on a little looking-glass; lovely pillows and carpets, Zanzibar date baskets, Bombay inlaid chests, El Hasa coffee-pots, and a Russian tea-urn—a truly marvellous conglomeration of things, which produced on us a wonderful sense of pleasure and repose after the bareness of our host's abode. Sheikh Saba wore only his long white shirt and turban, and so unconventional was he that he allowed his consort to remain at one end of the room whilst my husband was there.

The courtyards of these houses are architecturally interesting: the Saracenic arch, the rosettes of open-work stucco, the squares of the same material with intricate patterns—great boons in a hot land to let in the air without the sun. There is also another contrivance for obtaining air; in building the house a niche three feet wide is left in the outer wall, closed in on the inner side except for about a foot. It is funny to see the heads of muffled women peering out of these air-shafts, into which they have climbed to get an undisturbed view. Here some of the women wear the Arabian buttra or mask, which, while it hides their features, gives their eyes full play. They are very inquisitive. Some of the women one meets on Bahrein are highly picturesque when you see them without the dark-blue covering.

I was fetched to one harem after the other, always followed by a dense crowd, to the apparent annoyance of my hostesses, who, however, seemed powerless to prevent the intrusion. I saw one woman holding on to the top of the door and standing on the shoulders of one who was squatting on the floor. One good lady grew enraged at the invasion, and threw a cup of hot coffee in an intruder's face.

In the afternoon we rode over to Mountainous (and, it might be added, ruinous) Rufa'a.

It is built on a cliff, 50 feet above the lowest level of the desert; from here there is a view over a wide, bleak expanse of sand, occasionally relieved by an oasis, the result of a well and irrigation, and beyond this the eye rests on Jebel Dukhan, 'the mountain of mist,' which high-sounding name has been given to a mass of rocks in the centre of Bahrein, rising 400 feet above the plain, and often surrounded by a sea-fog; for Bahrein, with its low-lying land, is often in a mist. Some mornings on rising early we looked out of our tent to find ourselves enveloped in a perfect London fog—our clothes were soaking, the sand on the floor of our tent was soft and adhesive; then in an hour the bright orb of heaven would disperse all this, for we were very far south indeed, on the coast of Arabia. Alas! on arrival we found that our young friend Sheikh Mohammed was out, for he had to be in attendance on his uncle, Sheikh Esau, who had just arrived at his tent near our encampment, and he had to provide all his uncle's meals; we saw a donkey with a cauldron on its back large enough to boil a sheep in, large copper trays, and many other articles despatched for the delectation of the sovereign and his retinue. Sheikh Mohammed's mother, quite a queenly-looking woman, was busying herself about the preparation of these things, and when she had finished she invited us to go into the harem. My husband felt the honour and confidence reposed in him exceedingly, but, alas! all the women were veiled; all he could contemplate was their lovely hands and feet dyed yellow with henna, their rich red shirts, their aprons adorned with coins, their gold bracelets and turquoise rings. However I assured him that with one solitary exception he had lost nothing by not seeing their faces. In one corner of the women's room was the biggest bed I ever saw: it had eight posts, a roof, a fence, a gate, and steps up to it; it is a sort of daïs, in fact, where they spread their rugs and sleep, and high enough to lay beds under it too. Occasionally we got a good peep at the women as they were working in the fields, or cutting with semi-circular saws the scrub that grows in the desert for their cattle.

Half-way between the two Rufa'as we halted at a well, the great point of concourse for the inhabitants of both villages. It was evening, and around it were gathered crowds of the most enchanting people in every possible costume. Women and donkeys were groaning under the weight of skins filled with water; men were engaged in filling them, but it seems to be against the dignity of a male Arab to carry anything. With the regularity of a steam crane the woodwork of the well creaked and groaned with a sound like a bagpipe, as the donkeys toiled up and down their slope, bringing to the surface the skins of water. It was a truly Arabian sight, with the desert all around us, and the little garden hard by which Sheikh Saba cultivates with infinite toil, having a weary contest with the surrounding sand which invades his enclosure.

The sun was getting low when we returned to our bare room at Sheikh Khallet's, and to our great contentment we were left alone, for our day had been a busy one, and a strain on our conversational powers. Our host handed us over to the tender mercies of a black slave, Zamzam by name, wonderfully skilled at cooking with a handful of charcoal on circular stoves coloured red, and bearing a marked resemblance to the altars of the Persian fire-worshippers. He brought us in our dinner: first he spread a large round mat of fine grass on the floor; in the centre of this he deposited a washing basin filled with boiled rice and a bowl of ghi or rancid grease to make it palatable; before us were placed two tough chickens, a bowl of dates, and for drink we had a bowl of milk with delicious fresh butter floating in it. Several sheets of bread about the size and consistency of bath towels were also provided, but no implements of any kind to assist us in conveying these delicacies to our mouths. With pieces of bread we scooped up the rice, with our fingers we managed the rest, and we were glad no one was looking on to witness our struggles save Zamzam with a ewer of water, with which he washed us after the repast was over, and then we put ourselves away for the night.

Very early next morning we were on the move for our trip across the island. The journey would be too long for donkeys, they said, so Sheikh Khallet mounted us on three of his best camels, with lovely saddles of inlaid El Hasa work, with two pommels, one in front and one behind, like little pillars, capped and inlaid with silver. We—that is to say my husband and I and the bazaar-master—ambled along at a pretty smart pace across the desert in the direction of a fishing village called Asker, on the east coast of the island, near which were said to exist ancient remains; these, of course, turned out to be myths, but the village was all that could be desired in quaintness; the houses were all of bamboo, and the floors strewn over with little white helix shells; in one of them we were regaled with coffee, and found it delicious after our hot ride; then we strolled along the shore and marvelled at the bamboo skiffs, the curiously-fashioned oars and water casks, the stone anchors, and other primitive implements used by this seafaring race. The bazaar-master would not let us tarry as long as we could have wished, for he was anxious for us to arrive before the midday heat at a rocky cave in the 'mountain of mist,' in the centre of the island. We dismounted from our camels, and proceeded to examine Jebel Dukhan, an escarped mass of limestone rocks with rugged outline and deep caves. From the gentle elevation of the misty mountain one gets a very fair idea of the extent and character of Bahrein. The island has been likened to a sheet of silver in a sea of pearl, but it looked to us anything but silvery, and for all the world like one of the native sheets of bread—oval and tawny. It is said to be twenty-seven miles long and twelve wide at its broadest point. From the clearness of the atmosphere and the distinctness with which we saw the sea all around us, it could not have been much more. There are many tiny villages dotted about here and there, recognisable only by their nest of palm trees and their strips of verdure. In the dim distance, to our left, arose the mountains of Arabia; beyond, the flat coast-line of El Hasa, encircling that wild, mysterious land of Nejd, where the Wahabi dwell—a land forbidden to the infidel globe-trotter.

Yet another sheikh of the El Khalifa family was introduced to us, by name Abdullah; he owns the land about here, and having been advised of our coming, had prepared a repast for us, much on the lines of the one we had had the evening before.

We much enjoyed our cool rest and repast in Abdullah's cave, and for two hours or more our whole party lay stretched on the ground courting slumber, whilst our camels grazed around. Another sheikh was anxious to take us to his house for the night, but we could not remain, as our work demanded our return to camp that night, so we compromised matters by taking coffee with him on a green oasis near his house, under a blazing sun, without an atom of shade, and without a thing against which to lean our tired backs. Then we hurried back to Rufa'a, to take leave of our friend, Sheikh Khallet, and started off late in the evening for our home.

Soon we came in sight of Sheikh Esau's tent; his majesty was evidently expecting us, for by his side in the royal tent were placed two high thrones, formed of camel saddles covered with sheepskins, for us to sit upon, whilst his Arabian majesty and his courtiers sat on the ground. As many as could be accommodated sat round within the walls of the tent. Those for whom there was no room inside continued the line, forming a long loop which extended for some yards outside the tent. Here all his nephews and cousins were assembled. That gay youth Sheikh Mohammed, on ordinary occasions as full of fun as an English schoolboy, sat there in great solemnity, incapable of a smile though I maliciously tried to raise one. When he came next morning to visit us he was equally solemn, until his uncle had left our tent; then his gaiety returned as if by magic, and with it his covetousness for my pistol. Eventually an exchange was effected, he producing a coffee-pot and an inlaid bowl, which had taken our fancy, as the price.

On the surrounding desert a small gazelle is abundant. One day we came across a cavalcade of Bahreini sportsmen, who looked exceedingly picturesque in their flowing robes and floating red kaffiehs, and riding gaily caparisoned horses, with crimson trappings and gold tassels. Each had on his arm a hooded falcon and by his side a Persian greyhound. When the gazelle is sighted the falcon is let loose; it skims rapidly along the ground, attacks the head of the animal, and so confuses it that it falls an easy prey to the hounds in pursuit. Albuquerque in his 'Commentaries' says: 'There are many who hunt with falcons about the size of our goshawks, and take by their aid certain creatures smaller than gazelles, training very swift hounds to assist the falcon in catching the prey.'

In their ordinary life the Bahrein people still retain the primitiveness of the Bedouin.

There are about fifty villages scattered over the islands, recognisable from a distance by their patch of cultivation and groups of date-palms. Except at Manamah and Moharek they have little or nothing to do with the pearl fisheries, but are an exceedingly industrious race of peasants who cultivate the soil by means of irrigation from the numerous wells with which the island is blessed. There are generally three to six small wheels attached to the beam, which is across the well, over which the ropes of as many large leathern buckets pass. When these buckets rise full they tilt themselves over, the contents is then taken by little channels to a reservoir which feeds the dykes, transferred thence to the palms in buckets raised by the leverage of a date-trunk lightly swung by ropes to a frame, and balanced at one end by a basket of earth into which it is inserted; it is so light to lift that women are generally employed in watering the trees.

To manure their date-groves they use the fins of a species of ray fish called awwal, steeped in water till they are putrid; awwal, by the way, was an ancient name of the Island of Bahrein, perhaps because it was the first island of the group in size, awwal in Arabic meaning first.

The area of fertility is very rich and beautiful; it extends all along the north coast of the island, and the fishing village of Nayim, with its bamboo huts nestling beneath the palm-trees, is highly picturesque; and all this fertility is due to the number of fresh-water springs which burst up here from underground, similar, no doubt, to those before alluded to which spring up in the sea. The Arabs will tell you that these springs come straight from the Euphrates, by an underground channel through which the great river flows beneath the Persian Gulf, doubtless being the same legend alluded to by Pliny when he says, 'Flumen per quod Euphratem emergere putant.' There are many of them—the Garsari well, Um-i-Shaun, Abu Zeidan, and the Adari, which last supplies many miles of date-groves through a canal of ancient workmanship. The Adari well is one of the great sights of Bahrein, being a deep basin of water 22 yards wide by 40 long, beautifully clear, and full of prismatic colours. It is said to come up with such force from underground that a diver is driven back, and all around it are ruins of ancient date, proving that it was prized by former inhabitants as a bath. The water is slightly brackish, as is that of all these sources, so that those who can afford it send for water to a well between Rufa'a Jebeli and Rufa'a Shergeh—called Haneini, which is exceedingly good, and camels laden with skins may be seen coming into Manamah every morning with this treasure. We obtained our water supply thence. The other well, Abu Zeidan, is situated in the midst of the ruins known as Beled-al-Kadim, or 'old town.'

Two days later our camp was struck, and our long cavalcade, with Seid-bin-Omar, the bazaar-master, at its head, returned to Manamah. He had ordered for us quite a sumptuous repast at his mansion by the sea, and having learnt our taste for curiosities, he brought us as presents a buckler of camel-skin, his 8-foot-long lance, and a lovely bowl of El Hasa work—that is to say, minute particles of silver inlaid in wonderful patterns in wood. This inlaying is quite a distinctive art of the district of Arabia along the north-eastern coast known as El Hasa; curious old guns, saddles, bowls, and coffee-pots, in fact everything with an artistic tendency, comes from that country.

The day following was the great Thursday's Market at Beled-al-Kadim, near the old minarets and the wells. Mounted once more on donkeys, we joined the train of peasants thither bound; I being as usual the object of much criticism, and greatly interfering with the business of the day. One male starer paid for his inquisitiveness, by tumbling over a stall of knick-knacks, and precipitating himself and all the contents to the ground.

The minarets and pillars of the old mosques looked down on a strange scene that day. In the half-ruined, domed houses of the departed race, stall-holders had pitched their stalls: lanes and cross lanes of closely-packed vendors of quaint crockery, newly-cut lucerne, onions, fish, and objects of European fabric such as only Orientals admire, and amongst all was a compact mass of struggling humanity; but it was easy to see that the date-palm and its produce formed the staple trade of the place. There were all shapes and sizes of baskets made of palm-leaves, dates in profusion, fuel of the dried spathes, the male spathes for fructifying the palm, and palm-leaf matting—the only furniture, and sometimes the only roofing of their comfortless huts.

The costumes were dazzling in their brilliancy and quaintness. It was a scene never to be forgotten, and one of which a photograph, which I took from a gentle eminence, gives but a faint idea. It was our last scene on Bahrein—a fitting conclusion to our sojourn thereon.